Just wait until everyone figures out just how bad Samsung Galaxy and Windows 8 really are. A lot of these were sold. Not many will still be around this time next year. Also the returns for refund are not all in yet. Will be a stunning piece of data when you see it.

That's just wrong, Paul. Where do you think all the billions in capital to build the factories and railroads will come from to produce all those cars? The Easter Bunny?

Without capital, we would all still do what my grand dad did and that was share cropping. He had no "capital." He lived on another man's farm, used the other man's barn and mule, and gave the owner a 50% share of everything he raised. Back in those days, the government share was almost nothing. The only cash crop they raises was cotton and their actual income was very small.

I don't understand how people think that squandering our "seed corn" will accomplish anything except make us poorer. Didn't their mothers ever read them Asop's fables? It is their own foolish greed than motivates them to slaughter the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It's true what you said, that the $500B it would raise by soaking the rich is only a small amount or "chicken feed" relative to our debt. That's because our bloated government can waste $500B in just a few days. However that same $500B left in the hands of private capital could build a lot of factories and create a lot of jobs.

Right now, capital is on strike. No one wants to put any capital at risk in this socialist Obama economy where business is brow beaten every day by more regulations, continuous treats of higher taxes and nannyism like Obamacare.

Thanks Peter. Excellent article. Let me suggest that the laws of physics could be applied to ecomomics. Substitute in about any word: "Law of Conservation of Matter/Energy/______." or "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (unintended consequences)." On and on. Funny how the Krugmans are the alchemists of economics yet manage to command so much respect among so many others. They display a pure lack of critical thinking skills.

Let me add that over the years the full impact of inflated money supply has been mitigated by productivity gains. Otherwise it would be much worse. Without inflating the money supply for the past 100 years, homes would be $3,000 and autos $500. A person's savings would grow in real value. A person's wages would grow in buying power. Everyone would share more abundantly in ecomomic growth and increased productivity. Inflation is therefore the most cruel and insidious tax of all.

Just imagine the value of a dollar actually growing comensurate with the growth of productivity. There would be no poverty. People could retire on their own savings. Wow.

Did we miss a major central bank tightening overnight? The precious metals sector is lit up bright red following the Fed's addition to QE and what looks like the promise of ZIRP for at least 2-3 more years. GLD-1.1%, SLV-2.2% premarket. Copper and oil join in, the red metal -1.4%, and WTI crude -0.6%. [View news story]

Of course there is manipulation. If you notice every sharp increase is immediately batted back down. Not only government but banks. Banks and governments go out and either "loan gold" on a fractional reserve basis which multiplies the supply of "paper gold." Also banks go out naked short sell gold and silver. They sell gold and silver that they don't even own.

Imagine there is this bucket that is filling up. That is the gold price. We know, left unmanipulated it will rise and rise. That is predictable and reliable. A predictable and reliable natural behavior is all you need to be able to significantly manipulate for profit. Because you know, when you stop your manipulation which direction the price will go. Back up.

So these guys watch the bucket until they see it get almost full. Then they knock a hole in the bottom and siphon off the gains. They know it is going to fill back up so there is little risk in their actions. Prior to driving down the price, they buy puts and sell calls. They cash those in like milking a cash cow. They are cleaning up in both directions because they know the next move is then back up.

Okay so other's see this going on. They know they can't wait long to tap the bucket otherwise the other guy will tap it first. So the bucket size gets smaller and smaller as the manipulators become more and more aggressive. That's why the trading channel is becoming more and more narrow and why the price can't breakout like it would otherwise.

When we get a surge in the economy, a 2% ROI will seem like the "Middle Ages." People will dump Treasuries or "run away" from them. Money will "come out" of them just like money came out of FB and NFLX. It does not change the number of shares. But it does change the value of the shares.

Money has been "running into" US government notes and bonds for a long time. Investors mistakenly think it's a "safe haven." As they roll around in their ignorance, they banter about terms like "AAA" ratings and so on. Bid to cover on 30-year notes has been as much at 3.5x in the recent past. That means 3.5 times as many people bid on the darn things than were offered. That is indicative of money "running into" an investment.

Investors who have been running into this investment as a "safe haven" have actually been running into a burning building or boarding a sinking ship.

Every few weeks the government goes out and just sucks more and more investment out of our economy. Auctioning day after day in amounts over $35B at a time. Each one of these auctions pulls productive money out of the economy.

Now put on your thinking cap and realize that $35B is twice the market cap of S and CLWR combined. These two companies employed 60,000 people in 2009. Every time the government goes to the market for money, they are sucking as many as 120,000 jobs out of the market. Taking away from productive investments and "investing" in food stamps, welfare, disability, and Solyndra.

All these QE's SHOULD have the effect of mitigating this because it is basically printing money to replace what was sucked out. But in reality, this money is sidelined and sitting on balance sheets waiting for a better opportunity. So when the Romney economy starts to roar, this money will flood into the system and cause inflation and interest rates to rise. This is the poison pill that Obama has left for Romney.

It would be interesting to know how much China conrtibuted to last week's traunch of bail out bucks loaned to the US Treasury. It seems the bid to cover ratio was extremely high and the borrowing just sucked the air out of out every other investment. If China invested more in Treasuries, then you have a little more support for your hypothesis. I also hear China is buying up oil from Iran and paying in gold. Iran is selling the gold.

Don't theTreasury Investors realize they are running into a burning building? Hey, drop your gold everyone and run into the safety of US Treasuries. Hehehe, the wolf says, licking his chops. Honest, little piggies, I am not a wolf. I am not devouring the economy. It was not me. All those bones you see piling up in your graveyard economy happened before I came to the forest to protect you.

I are not slaughtering any gooses. And besides, gooses do not really lay golden eggs. That's just a silly fairy tale fabricated by those greedy capitalist pigs. Only the government can create wealth and security. Only the goverment can protect the path to grandma's house. Honest.

Don't let the wolf cook your goose. Be the little capitalist pig who builds his house with bricks of solid gold, not with paper. It looks like they are going on sale now for a while. When the cloth of the sheep falls off, the wolf will be exposed for what he is and the supply of suitable building blocks to protect your wealth will be very, very limited.

Agree, forget the paper price of gold. Just keep buying physical gold. Let me add that eventually the paper gold scam will become so greedy that it will leverage itself into a bubble of it's own. It's like the old "pigeon drop" scam which will become sorely exposed at some point in the future.

The drop in India is because of them raising the tax from 2% to 4%. There is a protest or "strike." This means a backlog of demand for gold that will be hit the market soon to satisfy either black market demand or demand cause by the tax policy being rescinded.

Of course, confidence in the dollar may rise (but only temporarily) pending the outcome of the US elections and how people perceive that a President Romney can somehow change our course (he can't). This could drive gold down to $1,200 per ounce in the next 6 to 12 months.

To quote Al Gore: "This roller coaster is headed for a crash and we are in the front car." Of course Gore was talking about our environment but I am extending it to our economy. That was the smartest thing Al said since he invented the internet.

Gold price will be determined more by geopolitical factors than moving averages and "chartology" as they will drive the demand over the next few months. Some people may disagree with this statement even though I feel like I am overstating the obvious.

SM, it's far from the same thing. That was an entire "virtual" industry of over valued dot com stocks. AAPL is not over valued. Nothing like any of the worthless over valued dot coms that went bust. The tech stocks that are overvalued now are CRM, NFLX, AMZN. Most others including MSFT, IBM, CSCO, and INTC are undervalued and will remain solid investments given continued prudent accounting and management.

I worked for Lucent at the time the dot com bubble burst so I very well know a bubble when I see one. If it is a bubble, then get out at any price and save what you can. But this ain't a bubble. The CRM's, NFLX, and AMZNs are very similar to the dot.coms. They are a bubble. APPL and the others I mention are solid and healthy tech giants.

So long as they do not make the mistake of selling equipment on credit or loaning money to CRM, NFLX, and AMZN, they will be fine. Lucent would have been fine if not for extending credit for customers to buy their equipment. Those customers were operating in the dotcomosphere bubble and when they went bust so did Lucent. Thanks go to Rich McGinn.

Somebody handed me a new Samsung Galaxy tablet in a meeting the other day. OMG the screen was so unresponsive and hard to use. Somehow the screen was just more difficult to use as an input device. Earlier this year, I had purchased an iPad, and Pod Touch and a Dell Duo notebook/tablet convertible. On the Dell, Windows is constantly having to update itself. It has the same non-responsive screen interaction as the Galaxy. I gave the Dell to my son and have not seen it since. I had been an Apple hater my whole life until I bought the iPad and iPod Touch. When Christmas got here, my was going to get some kind of MS based mp3 player for my son because the iPod Nano was more expensive. I advised her to get the Nano anyway. That kid was happy. I feel sorry for all the kids who got tablets or other devices for Christmas that are inferior to Apple products. Apple stuff just works right out of the box and works better than everyone else's. The reason I am an Apple hater is because they make products that work BETTER than everyone else's, they just won't work WITH everyone else's. I am an old school Linux and open source guy by nature and experience. But I can't argue with the ease in which Apple works right out of the box.

Apple is moving to reduce the cost of their products. This will result in a growing market share over the next 12 months. In addition, their costs will continue to go down and margins will continue to climb.

People who estimated sales based on orders for a single component from a few vendors (like screens) do not understand either manufacturing or supply chain. Sales might be down, but estimated based upon the data I saw are subject to be very wrong.

In either event, AAPL is up from here over the next 12 months. I think you will see a significantly positive earnings surprise on Wednesday and there will be a major pop. I had kept my powder dry looking for AAPL to drop to $470. But I pulled the trigger on Friday and loaded up at $500. If I am wrong about the pop on Wednesday I see it dropping to $500 but will head back up over $500 again within a year as the newer lower prices products become available. The Apple products are just better. The only reason to own Samsung or other products is because they are cheaper. Period.

Where anywhere on SA do I praise Bush? This has nothing to do with Bush or with Republicans or Democrats in general. That is an invalid assumption on your part. And the fact is I do know exactly what I am talking about. But I can't do miracles. If I could, I would help the blind to see. I have explained this in the clearest terms possible.

Do you have ANY IDEA how much money is on the sidelines right now waiting to be invested? DO YOU??? YOU DON'T. How much does Apple alone have? That is where the surge will come from. What about when the boot is taken off the throats of our banks and businesses? You will see a surge of investment again.

And as far as me deriding other commenters, just scroll back and you will see the sarcasm poured out on my views that implied that I am not thinking. Exactly the same as your deriding comments directed towards me.

I have pretty much agreed with your analysis for the short term of 3 to 6 months. What you don't understand is most of us don't care about that time frame with regard to investing in gold. Except perhaps to hold off on some of our buying so that we can get a better price.

You can take this to the bank, young man. America is fed up with the Fed. Come November we are taking a pine top and a bucket of tar and running Obama out of office. Geopolitical factors over the next 12 months will have everything to do about successful investing.

"Civilized people don't buy gold," Charlie Munger tells CNBC, prompting a couple of nice replies. From John Defeo, "... they buy 1/3 of the world's silver," referring to The Oracle's 2001 foray into that metal. "When one is fully invested in a fiat currency system both financially and in terms of legacy, you might say (that)," writes Robert Sinn. [View news story]

Ever since Warren started all that blathering about raising taxes, I have been calling him "The Orifice of Omaha."

I won't short CRM again until I see it start to break down. I lost some money buying puts on this thing over a year ago. Not since and never again. It still hasn't broken. In my opinion, you have to wait until you see something fundamentally break or change, some type of catalyst. If you think about it, the same was true with NFLX. It only broke down when the company made a huge marketing blunder that dramatically forced down subscriptions.

I have not been trading stocks all that long, but it seems these momentum stocks behave like the laws of physics. "An object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

Any kind of credible formal allegations of fraudulent accounting would certainly be such a catalyst. I would use caution not to draw those conclusions from nothing more substantial than a "Bernie Madoff" type of constant performance indicator. We know what they are doing and that they are "sandbagging." But it's legal so far as I know.

At some point, and I don't know when, but given enough patience and if we keep watching, someday this stock is going to become a huge money maker for those who deploy with the right timing.

I have come to that realization also, szeducate. You know, the high end Samsung phones are not at all cheap compared to the iPhone. Tablets either. People proclaiming that Samsung is "winning" sound a lot like Charlie Sheen to me. They win the prize for selling the most cheap phones at the lowest margin. I can see them now at the hawker stands in China right next to the guy yelling "Cheap Suits!!" Buu Yow!!!

I the Google Analytics data that I watch coming into my web sites, the number of hits coming from Samsung devices is not growing compared to Apple the way you would think if there really were a "sea change." I don't see it in the data. Apple is still the big dog in the mobile and tablet world. Big and still growing.

Apple just really needs to snatch that market out from under them by making new release to the iPhone 4 which is priced to compete on the low end. It won't cut into sales in the high end. But it would knock the pilings out from under Samsung.

Obama has only one driving goal and that is to "Burn down the plantations." I don't mean that as a racial epithet, but from a standpoint that he feels the working middle class have been exploited by the rich. "Plantations" in the modern sense are entire industrial sectors. He seeks to destroy all wealth and re-distribute the spoils as far down the economic ladder as he can push it.

He is so scornful towards the rich and successful. He is full of deep rooted hatred and class envy for successful Americans and the American way.

To understand him and where it comes from, just read his book: "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Therein you find the origins of a deep rooted hatred for what his father viewed as "American Colonialism." Even though the title implies so, Obama is not actually motivated by race or racism. It's the other evil "ism," Marxism, that has a hold of our dear President. Obama has a very twisted sense of fairness about him.

He must vilify everyone who does not agree with him. I am so sick of it. So I say, go ahead and raze America to the ground. Then strip the federal government of the power to tax and regulate so excessively. Then we can rebuild the country from her very foundation.

Obama has no clue who built America or how. He actually thinks government built America and the John D. Rockefeller's and Henry Ford's stole it. Just look at the way he constantly demonizes and vilifies "millionaires and billionaires" with such a putrid level of scorn and contempt.

One of my idols, Dr. Morris Massey, who authored "What You Are Now is What You Were When," makes a case that your value system is fixed at a young age. And the values within that system do not change without a person having undergone "a significant emotional event."

It is my fondest hope that a new "Capitalist Scrooge" character will visit our President in the middle of the night and give him a significant emotional event in the form of three new dreams. Dreams of real economic prosperity past, present and future.

Okay, that's my political rant. I have not had one in a while. It's off my chest now. Because mc2406 mentioned Obama, he is to blame for this rant just sure as Bush is still to blame for our bad economy and guns are to blame for the murdered children that Obama is so shamlessly exploiting with such savvy political skill. .People can say whatever they want, but in the words of Forest Gump: "That's all I have to say about that." Sweet dreams.